Will Davidson recalls the first event he attended as a new member of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization’s Accelerator Program in New Orleans.
“It was Nov. 15, 2007,” he says. “It changed my life. I’ll never forget it.”
Davidson, 27, had signed up for the peer-to-peer entrepreneurship program in a desperate attempt for guidance on how to grow his Baton Rouge-based high-performance auto parts business.
He had started Hybrid Racing modestly four years earlier in his girlfriend’s parents’ house. Despite building his revenue to $382,000 at the end of 2006 and moving operations from a storage center to a legitimate office space, he still wasn’t sure if the business could achieve long-term success.
“At that point, I could have easily diverted back to getting a job and working for someone else,” he says. “I came from a poor background. No one in my family had ever gone to college. I didn’t have anyone in my life who could give me the advice I felt like I needed.”
Davidson admits to feeling a little skeptical and plenty scared upon walking into that first event. He expected to find “a bunch of old, successful guys” who would, at best, get a chuckle out of his little startup business and offer up some uninspiring, clichéd business advice.
Instead, he found a group of 20 like-minded entrepreneurs anxious to share their own experiences and struggles. It was an epiphany for Davidson. His aha! moment. He left the daylong program in tears.
“I remember thinking, ‘It’s not just me anymore. These people are going to help me make this a reality,’” Davidson says. “I felt like anything was possible. It was like a religious experience.”
EO Chairman-elect Kevin Langley, a Baton Rouge native and LSU graduate, hopes the newest Accelerator Program, set to launch in Baton Rouge in the coming year, will provide 30 aspiring entrepreneurs the same experience.
The program aims to help entrepreneurs with annual revenues of at least $250,000 surpass the $1 million mark. It’s not an arbitrary goal: Of 27 million businesses in the U.S., Langley says, just 4% reach the seven-figure mark.
“And that’s where the job creation really starts to happen,” he says. “So we’re trying to address one of the most pressing needs in the global economy right now by supporting entrepreneurs to enable them to get to the next level, where they begin hiring and expanding the economy.”
Of the 400 entrepreneurs who have participated in the program since its creation four years ago, Langley says 80—or 20%—have eclipsed $1 million in revenues.
“What makes the Accelerator Program different and so successful is that it’s driven by the passion and energy that comes from putting creative entrepreneurs in the same place,” says Jonathan Ortmans, the president of Global Entrepreneur Week and a senior fellow of the Kauffman Foundation. “It’s very difficult to teach someone about entrepreneurship unless you’re an entrepreneur yourself. That’s their advantage.”
Langley helped found the program shortly after Hurricane Katrina, with New Orleans one of the initial chapters.
Today, there are active program chapters in 23 cities in four countries. In addition to learning from the experiences of their peers, program participants are connected with EO members worldwide.
EO is a global nonprofit with 7,500 members in 42 countries. Its members are founders, owners or majority owners of companies grossing at least $1 million annually. As Davidson discovered, it’s not a good-old-boy group of aging barons and tycoons. The average member is 40 years old, with a business averaging $18 million in sales and slightly less than 200 employees.
“I don’t get access to contacts, I get access to experience,” says Davidson, who cleared the $1 million mark one year ago after two years in the program and became an EO member. “It’s not that someone is going to magically fix your business. You get out of it what you put into it. For me, I feel like I can accomplish anything with the resources I have from the Accelerator Program and EO.”
Founded by a group of young entrepreneurs in 1987, EO connects business leaders who share advice and experiences with one another in the interest of global growth.
“We’re entrepreneurs helping entrepreneurs. We’re not some outside agency trying to help entrepreneurs,” says Langley, CEO and co-owner of Ellis Construction, a New Orleans–based commercial contracting company he founded after graduating from LSU. He also owns two startups.
Baton Rouge’s program will have an inaugural class of as many as 30 entrepreneurs. Participants must be owners or CEOs of companies with minimum revenues of $250,000. In addition to the quarterly sessions focusing on strategic planning, sales and marketing, human resources and finance, participants work with EO mentors to evaluate progress on a monthly basis.
The program is looking for “high-potential, high-growth and high-interest entrepreneurs,” says Langley, especially those in emerging Blue Ocean industries such as technology and new media. A program also is being established in Lafayette.
Applications are just starting to be gathered, and the Baton Rouge Area Chamber is partnering with EO to provide program assistance and identify the right entrepreneurs for the program.
“A program of this nature was recommended in our regional innovation strategy work earlier this year,” says Meg Mahoney, BRAC’s senior vice president of product development. “This program will be another valuable asset offered to entrepreneurs in the region, allowing them to expedite growth and build stronger networks.”
Davidson says it’s possible his business would have reached the $1 million mark without the program, just not as quickly.
“It put me years ahead of where I was,” he says. “It still boggles my mind to think of the mind-set I was in before I found the program.”
Hybrid Racing currently is moving to a larger facility. Davidson anticipates his revenue will be roughly $1.6 million this year, and he’s aiming to eclipse $2 million in 2011. He’s hired eight employees, including two engineers who recently graduated from LSU.
Langley envisioned that kind of economic impact when he helped create the program. He cites a recent Kauffman Foundation report that showed all of the net job creation over the past 20 years has come from emerging businesses less than five years old.
“Will is someone who is keeping our smart, talented people in Baton Rouge,” he says. “It’s the Will Davidsons of the world who are addressing the real needs of the communities they live and work in. That’s why it’s so important to find those entrepreneurs who are in the position that Will was in a few years ago and give them all the support and resources we can.”
